Month: September 2008

Tag, You’re It Meme


Patty tagged me. I swear I’ve done this before, but since the answer to at least the first question is changeable, and moreover, I am changeable, what the heck.

1. Where was I 10 years ago?

Ten years ago this very week, I traveled to Boston to appear on the TV show JEOPARDY! It did not air until November 9, so it was a royal pain in the whatever to fend off the questions about how well I did.

2. What was on my to-do list today?

The usual: take the daughter to day care. Go to the Y, riding my bike if the weather allows, riding the bus otherwise. Play racquetball, shower. Bus to work, eat shredded wheat. Work, home fpor dinner, try to squeeze in the news before bed.

The other stuff: call church so I can publicize an event (the visit of a theologian to our church next month) in another blog. Publicize the fact that a fellow board member of the Friends of the Albany Public Library Association is getting a prestigious award from the New York Library Association, something I nominated Dennis Mosley for. Try to write a blog post.

3. What would I do if I were a billionaire?

The first thing I’d do is hire a general contractor to get all the things in my house fixed all at once- the roof, the porch, the kitchen cabinets, the extra insulation. The one extravagence – some reasonably large TV with stero speakers. and a deck because my wife wants one. We’d move out until it was all done.
Money for college for Lydia.
Pay off the houses of my sisters and my wife’s brothers.
Contributions to church and various causes.
Travel to six continents.
Hire someone to organize papers and other “stuff”.

4. Five places I’ve lived

Binghamton, NY
Kingston, NY
New Paltz, NY
Charlotte, NC
Jamaica (Queens), NY

5. Bad Habits

My ability to misplace things
My tendency to be late
Emotional eating
Impatience with smokers; I understand they are people, too
My trending towards the melancholy

Oh, I’m not going to tag anyone. Wait, I will, for nefarious reasons:

Gordon, because the last time I tagged people I DIDN’T tag him and he seemed upset
Uthaclena, because it might increase his output
Jaquandor, in hope that it jump-starts him from his blogging lethargy.
Ditto for Librarian 2008
Kelly Brown, just because.
 ROG

ROG

A free copy of the U.S. Constitution can be yours for the asking


In anticipation of Constitution Day, which is September 17, I asked a number of people this: what is Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution about? I asked a guy who had to study to become a naturalized citizen in the past four years. I asked a librarian. I asked a teacher. I asked a guy who has tried out for JEOPARDY! No one knew.

The answer, BTW, is that Article 1 establishes the legislature, i.e., Congress.
Article 2 establishes the executive branch and Article 3, the judiciary. I was asking this to make a point, which was the primacy of the Congress was intended by the Founders, but it’s difficult to make an argument when no one understands the point of reference. The separation of powers has gotten pretty much out of whack over the past half century, going back to Harry Truman and the Korean war, and mitigated only briefly by Watergate.

I’m so distressed by this outcome that I will send up to the first 100 people to e-mail me with their addresses a copy of the Constitution, plus additional background. The offer ends on the first Monday in October 2008 at 6 pm Eastern time or when supplies run out, whichever comes first.

ROG

ROG

QUESTION: Political Mind

1. So how did you get to think like that? Was it a function of your parents?

My parents were Republicans when I was growing up. But being a Republican in New York in the 1960s meant moderate people like Nelson Rockefeller, Jacob Javits, Kenneth Keating (all from NY), William Scranton (PA) and George Romney (MI), not so incidentally the father of Mitt. As the Republican party got more conservative, starting with Nixon’s “southern strategy” which followed LBJ’s signing of the Civil rights Act of 1964, the Democrats became comparative more liberal.

2. Were your parents politically active? Did they talk politics with you?

My father was socially active. though he had a full-time job, he was also a community organizer, keeping the kids off the streets and engaged in meaningful activities. (I must digress here. I’ve seen a number of folks note that Martin Luther King Jr. and even even Jesus Christ were community organizers, which I would argue is largely true. Doesn’t mean Obama is saying he’s MLK or Jesus, any more than if I said I’m for peace so I must be just like Gandhi.)

I don’t remember my parents working campaigns or even putting up bumper stickers or fliers. I do recall talking to them about their votes in the 1968 election, when I talked them into voting for Hubert humphrey rather than Dick Gregory.

3. Have you ever worked on a political campaign?

A few times. the first was supporting Bill Burns for mayor of Binghamton, NY in 1969, I think, in any case, before i could actually vote. Beyond blowing up balloons, I don’t recall what I did. Did more for McGovern in 1972, for naught. My next effort, in 1974, was more successful . I think I’ve only worked four other campaigns, in 1980 (lost), 1995 (won), and two this century, but only because friends of mine wee running – and they both won!
***
OK, I’ll admit that publicizing the fact that, as a result of a class action lawsuit, TransUnion is offering free credit monitoring, and doing so on every platform to which I have access is partly in retaliation for TransUnion and the other credit reporting companies trying to sell me stuff for which I was entitled to for free when I had my identity theft scare. Still I want everyone to take advantage of the deal, and you have less than two weeks to do so.


ROG

ROG

BOOK REVIEW: Across the Charts-the 1960s


I am an unabashed fan of those Billboard books such as Top Pop Singles and Top R&B /Hip Hop Singles. Arriving in the mail this week, Joel Whitburn Presents Across the Charts-the 1960s. It takes all the songs that hit the Hot 100 (HT), Bubbling Under (BU), R&B (RB), Country (CW) and Adult Contemporary (AC). from January 1960 through December 1969. Additionally it notes those “list” songs such as the Rolling Stone 500 greatest songs, RIAA/NEA 365 songs of the (20th) century, BMI top 100 songs of the century, etc.

Examples: Whipped cream by Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass entered the AC charts on 3/20/66 and got to #13, spending 8 weeks on the charts, while it hit the HT charts on 2/20/66 and stayed there for 10 weeks, but only got to #68.

The Beatles’ From Me to You was released on 8/3/63 but only got to the BU charts at #116, but was re-released on 3/7/64 and got to #41. Another Beatles’ song, Something, was #3 on the HT but also #17 on the AC, the ONLY Beatles song to reach the AC in the decade. Also, Something was #273 on the Rolling Stone list and #17 on the BMI rating.

Nat “King Cole’s Ramblin’ Rose was #1 for 5 weeks in 1962 on the AC charts, #2 for 2 weeks on the HT chart AND #7 on the RB charts. Similarly, the 1960 Elvis Presley hit Stuck on You was #1 for 4 weeks on the HT, #6 on the RB(!) and #27 on the CW. I note these last two examples to describe the universality of music, and why I was never able to organize my albums by “genre”.

Additionally, the book lists all the songs alphabetically, so I can see that All My Loving charted for the Beatles, the Chipmunks, Jimmy Griffin and the Hollyridge Strings.

There are three songs that made it to #1 on three of the four charts
I Can’t Stop Lovin’ You by Ray Charles (1962): RB (10 weeks), HT (5 weeks) and AC (5 weeks); #161 on the Rolling Stone list, #40 on the BMI.
Big Bad John by Jimmy Dean (1961): AC (9 weeks), HT (5 weeks), CW (2 weeks).
AND, OMG
Honey by Bobby Goldsboro (1968): HT (6 weeks), CW (3 weeks), AC (2 weeks).

There’s is only one song that made the Top 10 in all four charts, HT, RB, CW, and AC. Any guesses?

This is a really fun book, at least for a music junkie of this period such as I. For more information, go to RecordResearch.com.

(This was an unpaid, unsolicited announcement for a book I’m loving.)

ROG

ROG

Forgetting 9/11


Even three or four years after September 11, 2001, there was this public conversation that people were “forgetting” 9/11. Or more precisely, had “forgotten the lessons of 9/11.”

I was working in a 14-story building in downtown Albany in September 2001. It was a beautiful, virtually perfect day, weatherwise, in the Northeast.
About 8:55 a.m., someone told me that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. Someone from the office across the hall had a TV – we didn’t. I looked, but no one reporting on it had any information. One of my colleagues hoped that it wouldn’t be like the John F. Kennedy, Jr. airplane crash a couple months earlier, where ABC News, for one reported on air for SEVEN HOURS that the plane was missing and was feared to have crashed, and not all that much else, before the crash was finally confirmed. I went back to work.

To my mind, it really means that those people are really chastising the actions and beliefs of their fellow Americans who feel that the activities of the government since that date might not be in the best interest of the United States, whether it be the Iraq war or the prisoners at Gitmo.

Ten minutes later, someone came in and reported that a SECOND plane had hit the WTC, and this time I watched until I had seen the infamous video about five times. Then I left again, ostensibly to do work. But I didn’t. I heard someone’s radio on, which is how I heard about the Pentagon crash, so I went back to the TV, saw it, but unlike my co-workers, retreated back to my office, where I hear on the radio that all planes were being grounded. Wild speculation took place that there were still eight to 12 planes in the air, unaccounted for; in fact, there was only one.

It seems as though, in purporting to be fighting for freedom in Iraq, there is, ironically, less freedom at home due to the USA “PATRIOT” Act and like governmental activities.

After hearing of the collapse of the South Tower around 10 a.m., I went back to the TV. The speculation of the fatalities were awful. Then the other tower collapsed in front of me.
One odd thing about that day was that I was supposed to be on a plane to Dallas the very next day. One of my colleagues was grounded in Little Rock while my boss had already made it to Dallas and they were conferring about what to do. One of my Albany colleagues had the bizarre notion of driving to Dallas. I finally talked with my boss, who said that he didn’t think we were in any danger. Actually, it wasn’t until later when I discovered that one of the planes was actually in Albany air space that I thought that maybe we COULD have been in danger. In any case, the conference was canceled.

There was a guy I knew rather slightly from my State Data Center Affiliates meetings who died in the Twin Towers. He was a quiet but rather pleasant man who tried, more or less unsuccessfully, to teach me how to use a particular type of software.

We were allowed to go home, which was just as well, for we weren’t doing any work. I used to ride my bicycle under something called the Empire State Plaza, as a lesser incline than State Street. I rode past a policeman. I was past him by 20 yards when he called to me; maybe he should be checking me out?
Then for reasons I cannot explain, I went to Music Shack and bought the new Bob Dylan album Love and Theft, which I had preordered and that was released that day; didn’t actually LISTEN to it for well over a week. I watched TV there, then went home and watched for nine more hours. Starting the next day, I limited myself to one hour per day for a while, except that weekend, when the late Peter Jennings did a piece trying to explain the events to children.

I don’t believe most people have “forgotten” 9/11. They may have come to different conclusions as a result of it, but I could no more “forget” 9/11 than those of an earlier generation could “forget” Pearl Harbor. But I think we need to create an atmosphere whereby disagreeing with government response to 9/11 is not treated as a treasonous act.

At the conference I attended last week, Hiram Smith of Franklin Covey spoke about loss, the notion of bad things happening to good people, and he specifically mentioned 9/11. He noted that you can’t avoid pain, but you can choose to avoid misery. I’ll have to ponder that one.

Meanwhile, here are some newspaper headlines from 9/12/01.

ROG
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